Stephen Timms, shadow employment minister, said: "The Government’s welfare reform has comprehensively failed at a time when youth unemployment is edging towards a million, and long-term unemployment is at its highest level in 17 years.

"The Youth Contract is on course to miss its target by 92 per cent, and the flagship Work Programme has not hit a single one of its minimum performance standards."

“These testimonies from the heart of the Universal Credit programme are utterly damning. No strategic leadership, no plan, no idea.

"The scheme is in chaos. The truth is Universal Credit is in crisis and everyone knows it.

"It’s time for Iain Duncan Smith to admit this project is in deep trouble, come clean about how bad things are, and ask for help, because if things stay as they are this flagship will sink – taking hundreds of millions of pounds of public money with it.”

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Timms has called the Government's welfare reforms a "damp squib".

Speaking to Daybreak he said: "This government is making a complete hash of introducing the new system, the computer system is nowhere near ready, we were promised a welfare revolution, what we're actually getting today is a damp squib, a tiny number of people being affected."